


The First Sorrow Wept Without Her

by earlgreytea68



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Inception Bingo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 14:16:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7644217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't like Arthur to cancel on a job. Eames is determined to track him down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Sorrow Wept Without Her

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for death of a minor character (e.g., not Arthur or Eames, but this is a fic about death).
> 
> Written for the Inception Bingo square "vulnerability." And with that I make bingo! (Because I went with a three x three square.)
> 
> Thank you as ever to my beta arctacuda, who, hearkening back to my previous fic, was actually the person who really introduced me to Wodehouse through a Psmith book. :-)

“What do you mean, he’s canceled?” Eames asked stupidly, standing in the middle of a warehouse that definitely did not contain Arthur. 

“Just what I said,” said Marisol bluntly. “He canceled.” 

“Arthur doesn’t _cancel_ ,” said Eames. He had never known Arthur to cancel anything. He had known Arthur to make it to bloody _dentist appointments_ while he had been supposedly in hiding. Arthur was committed to a terrifying fault. 

“Well, he canceled. He called yesterday and said he couldn’t make it but he’d send me his research, which he did.” Marisol indicated the huge stack of papers on one of the warehouse desks. “That was his main role anyway, so it’s not a huge deal that he canceled.” 

“But,” said Eames. Never mind the fact that he had only taken this job in the first place because Arthur had been on it, which was a thing Eames had a habit of doing. He was genuinely alarmed, independent of his own disappointment. “What did he say?” 

“That he had to cancel.” Marisol looked completely unconcerned. Marisol was eating fucking _M &Ms_ like Arthur canceled on a job every day. 

“He didn’t give any other details?” 

Marisol gave him a look. “Does Arthur give details about himself, ever?” 

She had a point. But just because Arthur didn’t give details didn’t mean you didn’t snoop and find them for yourself. At least, that was how Eames viewed it. “How did he sound?” Eames persisted. 

“I didn’t speak to him in person. It was an email.” Marisol shrugged.

Fuck, thought Eames. Bloody fucking hell. Arthur could have been _kidnapped_ , and Marisol was acting like that was just _completely fine_. 

“I have to cancel, too,” Eames said. 

Marisol’s head snapped up. “ _What_? You can’t! We can’t do this without a forger!”

“Oh, yes, you can, you’ll be absolutely fine, you never needed me in the first place, it’s a cut-and-dried extraction, think for yourself for a change,” said Eames, which was maybe a little harsh, but _Arthur_. “Think of it this way,” Eames continued. “This way you get my share of the pot _and_ Arthur’s.” 

That persuaded Marisol. 

***

It was arduous to track Arthur down. No more so than usual, but Eames was tired and somewhat out-of-sorts by the time he trailed his way down a dull suburban street outside Rochester, New York. Really, had it been necessary for Arthur to disappear and force Eames to go to _Rochester_? Where were Arthur’s manners? Eames was going to have a word with him. 

Except that what happened when he stepped out of the car in front of the address he’d tracked down was that Arthur coincidentally also stepped out the front door. He was carrying a beautiful soft leather Prada messenger bag, but it was the only thing about him that looked like Arthur. Otherwise his hair looked disheveled and uncombed and he was wearing jeans that slouched on his body and a black T-shirt that had a frayed hem, and if Arthur was trying to deter Eames from arguing with him over suddenly disappearing then he was doing an excellent job. Eames was nothing but a million times more concerned, now that he had actually found Arthur. 

Arthur drew to an immediate halt and stared at Eames in astonishment. “Eames,” he said. “What are you doing here?” 

Eames put his hands in his pockets and walked up the front walk to the immobile Arthur. “Tracking you down. What are _you_ doing here?” 

Arthur looked at Eames, and Arthur’s bottom lip actually _trembled_. 

Eames’s eyes widened in surprise. “What—”

Arthur shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his lips tightly together, looking as if he was trying to get himself under control. Eames watched in astonishment. 

Arthur said, voice not quite steady, “Don’t. Just.” And then he stepped forward and pressed his face against Eames’s shoulder. 

Eames’s arms came up automatically, instinctively, enfolding Arthur. Arthur wasn’t quite crying, but he did make a series of tiny aborted gasps for breath that broke Eames’s heart. Eames had no idea what was going on, but he understood when someone was in need of comfort, and even if he’d never known Arthur to need comforting before, he knew what to do. He smoothed a hand over Arthur’s hair and said, “Shh. Shh, darling. It’s okay.” And then he added, because he didn’t know why but he felt it was relevant, “I’m here now.” Weirdly, he felt like he should have been there all along, that it was inexcusable that Arthur had been on his own feeling like this for any period of time at all, never mind days. 

And Arthur, maybe more weirdly but also making perfect sense, nodded and drew back a little bit, sniffling and swiping at his eyes. “Can you come with me?” he asked, not looking at Eames. 

_Where?_ Eames wanted to ask. “Of course,” he said. 

***

Arthur drove, looking tremulous but capable, keeping a grip on his emotions. Eames tried not to gape at him. Instead Eames looked out his window and did not make conversation because he sensed that Arthur did not need that at all. 

Eventually Arthur stopped the car at a funeral home. Eames looked from the funeral home to Arthur, who was staring at the steering wheel. Finally he took a deep breath and got out of the car. Eames followed him, clutching the Prada bag he’d been entrusted with. 

Arthur was greeted by a woman who had to be the funeral director. She gave him a careful funeral-director smile and said, “Hello, Arthur.” 

“Hi,” Arthur said. “This is Eames.”

The funeral director smiled at him politely. “Hello.” 

“Hi,” Eames replied. 

Arthur took the bag from Eames and handed it across to the funeral director. “I brought her…I mean, her favorite outfit, that she used to wear to…and the jewelry I think she’d like, and some of her make-up because I thought that—”

“Thank you, Arthur,” the funeral director said kindly. “This is all perfect. We’re going to take very good care of her.” 

Arthur nodded, looking fixedly at the messenger bag. 

Eames, after a second, ventured cautiously, “Thank you. We appreciate that.” 

Arthur nodded again, still looking at the bag. 

Eames reached out, oh-so-slowly, like Arthur was a skittish dog who might jerk away from him, and took his hand and squeezed. After a second, Arthur straightened a little and turned from the bag. And squeezed Eames’s hand back. 

Eames smiled at him, even though Arthur wasn’t looking at him to see, and said, “Let’s go.” Then he looked at the funeral director. “Thanks so much.” 

“See you tomorrow,” the funeral director said. 

Eames walked hand-in-hand with Arthur out of the funeral home. 

***

Arthur didn’t say anything for the entirety of the ride back to the house, and neither did Eames. Eames had no idea how to handle this situation. Eames had not expected to find Arthur so…this. He didn’t know how to respond to Arthur’s current vulnerability. He had never imagined such a state. 

So he stayed silent next to Arthur and contemplated what he ought to do next. 

Food, he thought practically. Probably Arthur, in this state, hadn’t thought to eat. Arthur was bad about eating even under the best of circumstances. 

The house Eames walked into was like a time capsule from three decades ago, and it was covered in photographs of Arthur. Arthur as a giggling little boy, Arthur as a laughing teenager, Arthur as a much more serious college student, looking much more like the Arthur Eames knew. Eames was so distracted by the wall of photographs that he forgot about his food plan. 

“I was a fucking terrible son,” Arthur said miserably. 

Eames looked at him. He was sitting on the threadbare sofa, his head in his hands. “I’m sure you weren’t,” Eames said. He couldn’t imagine Arthur being fucking terrible at anything. “She clearly adored you.” 

Arthur laughed humorlessly. “She did. And I never came home, I never… In the end she didn’t even know who I was. There were all these photographs around of me, and she would ask the nurse who the nice young man was. Christ. And I didn’t come home because I thought it wouldn’t make a difference, she wouldn’t know the difference, and instead I—” Arthur choked around a sob. 

Eames reacted instinctively, sitting beside Arthur and placing a hand on the back of Arthur’s neck, fingers woven into the short hair there. “Tell me something good,” he said. 

“What?” said Arthur, looking at Eames blankly, his eyes raw and exhausted. 

“Tell me a good memory you have of your mother.” 

Arthur thought, then, after a second, smiled faintly. “When I was in school, when I had a test, she would always write ‘Good luck’ on a piece of paper and tuck it into the sleeve of my coat so I’d see it in the morning.”

“That sounds lovely,” Eames said. 

Arthur nodded, then swiped at his eyes. “When I went away to college, she used to send me rolls of quarters in the mail so I could do laundry.” 

“Of course she did. She knew how important your clothing is to you.” 

Arthur managed a short laugh, a flash of dimples in Eames’s direction. 

Eames, more relieved than he could explain, pressed a finger into the right one, briefly. “What have you eaten, darling?”

“Eaten?” Arthur echoed blankly. 

“I thought so,” said Eames. “Let’s get you something to eat.” Eames stood and went into the kitchen. 

Arthur said, “Eames, you don’t have to…”

“It’s no trouble,” said Eames, looking at the empty refrigerator. 

“No, I mean… Not the food, you don’t have to…do anything.” 

Eames glanced up at Arthur, standing awkwardly in the kitchen doorway. Then he straightened from the refrigerator and closed it and walked over to him, saying honestly, “I’ll go if you want. Or I’ll stay if you want. Whatever you need, love. I just want to help.” 

Arthur stared at him, eyes wide and wet. “Why?” 

The answer to that question seemed astonishingly complicated to Eames, which surprised him, because Eames had spent most of his life being as selfish as he possibly could. He was not a person who showed up to help people move or paint or bury their mothers. He had no idea why he hadn’t just turned and fled as soon as he’d ascertained Arthur was alive. 

“Because we’re friends,” Eames decided. Surely this was what friends did. 

Arthur looked dubious. “Are we?”

“Arthur,” said Eames, trying a smile on for size. “You know most of my aliases, and I know that you’re obsessed with World of Warcraft and are also terrible at it. Yes. We’re friends.” He said it firmly, as if he could convince himself of it. 

“I’m very good at World of Warcraft,” Arthur said. “And I know all of your aliases.” 

“Keep telling yourself that, love,” said Eames lightly. 

Arthur snorted skeptically. 

Eames said, “You’ve no food in this house. I’ll fetch us a pizza, and you should take a shower. And shave. You look awful.” 

Arthur blinked. “Wow,” said Arthur. “Thanks.” 

“Friends can say that to each other.” 

“I’m beginning to understand why you have so few friends,” Arthur said. 

“I have a lot of friends,” Eames informed him primly. 

“You have looked awful for years, you know. _Years_.” 

“Yes. And you see fit to tell me at absolutely every opportunity,” remarked Eames. “Now go. Take a shower. I’ll be back.” 

***

When Eames got back with the pizza, Arthur’s hair was damp and he’d shaved, but he was still uncharacteristically dressed in sweatpants and another worn T-shirt. But he was grieving, so Eames figured that made sense. At any rate, he sat opposite Eames at the tiny kitchen table and ate a couple of pieces of pizza mechanically, which Eames considered to be a good thing. 

Arthur was silent until he finished his second piece of pizza, and Eames left him to his thoughts. 

Then Arthur leaned back and said, “How’d you find me?” 

Eames gave him a look. “Insulting. Next question.” 

“ _Why_ did you find me?” 

“It isn’t like you to cancel a job like that,” Eames said. “I thought you might be in trouble.” 

Arthur’s gaze was dark and even. “Do you always look for me when you think I’m in trouble?” 

“Are you going to pretend that’s not a mutual impulse?” Eames asked lightly. 

“I didn’t know it was,” Arthur said. 

Eames regarded him across the table for a moment, before saying, “Darling. Did you think, all this time, that you were looking out for everyone in the universe, and there was no one looking out for _you_?”

“I thought—” Arthur frowned a little. “I guess I didn’t think it would be you.” 

“Well, that was foolish of you,” Eames said. 

“Because we’re friends?” said Arthur. 

“We’re friends,” said Eames, exasperated, as if he hadn’t just put that label on their relationship himself. “We go for drinks when we’re on jobs together.” 

“To complain about everyone else in dreamsharing.” 

“That’s what friends do. Friends complain about everyone else in the world. The world is divided into people you complain about and friends.” 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Arthur said, with a seriousness Eames had not expected. “I want you to stay.” 

“Then I’ll stay,” Eames agreed. 

“It’s just that I— There’s so much I…”

“Arthur. I’ll stay, love.” 

Arthur nodded, looking so relieved that Eames’s heart got all twisted up in his chest. 

Probably indigestion. 

***

The next day Eames spent the morning checking dreamsharing gossip and trolling people on Reddit. Arthur spent the morning sleeping. 

When he finally rolled out of bed Eames said, “I went out and got you a coffee. It’s cold now.” 

“I can get my own coffee,” Arthur said, but took a sip of the cold coffee on the kitchen counter anyway. He made a face and glanced over at Eames. “What are you doing?” 

“Fighting with the Internet,” Eames replied. 

“Sensible. Productive. Not at all a waste of time.” 

“Someday, when I am declared King of the Internet, you’ll ask me for benevolence and I’ll remind you of this moment when you were snide about my Internet-fighting skills.” 

“So,” Arthur said, not reacting to Eames, which made Eames pay careful attention to him. “Today.” 

“Yes?” Eames prompted when Arthur didn’t seem inclined to keep talking. 

“There’s a wake,” Arthur said. “Like, you know, so people can pay respects. We’re Catholic, it’s a whole thing, and my mother had a lot of friends. You know, before…everything. They’ll want to go, and see me, and whatever.” Arthur waved his hand around. 

Eames considered him, considered what it was likely Arthur would want. “Do you want me to go to the wake with you?” Eames asked finally, thinking it was the right conclusion.

Arthur looked up at him with eyes swamped with relief. So yes, right conclusion. “Would you? I mean, I know it’s a lot—”

“Arthur,” Eames interrupted him, and Arthur stilled and watched him carefully, as if worried he might still change his mind. “It’s not a lot. At all. Of course I’ll go.” Eames wanted to reach out and close his hand over Arthur’s, squeeze it in comfort. Which…wasn’t really like him. He wasn’t a person to comfort through idle touches. But, then again, a part of him was also wondering why Arthur hadn’t rung him immediately when all this had happened, and he knew that that was unlike him, too. Why would Arthur have rung him? That wasn’t the kind of relationship they had. If Eames’s mother died, he definitely wouldn’t call Arthur. 

***

If Eames’s mother died, he definitely would call Arthur. Arthur would be the _only_ person he would call. 

“Christ,” Eames said aloud, standing on the side of Arthur’s childhood home smoking a cigarette and staring at the horrible suburban vista in front of him and wondering how he had never realized this. 

But he was here, in the middle of a huge Arthur crisis, and he was half-offended that he’d had to ferret out the crisis on his own. He was offended Arthur hadn’t realized that they had the type of relationship where Arthur should have called him. Which was rich, because _he_ hadn’t realized they had that type of relationship until just now. 

But they _did_. Eames had lived with it for so long that it had become so habitual that he barely noticed it until its absence, like the nicotine in the cigarette he was smoking. A simmering attraction, he’d thought, yes, but Arthur _was_ attractive, so that was only human, and there were plenty of other attractive people in the world. Arthur was fun to tease, yes, and so Eames teased him. Arthur was a genius, yes, and so Eames worked with him a lot. 

And Eames kept track of him, worried when he fell off the grid, surreptitiously followed his jobs, took jobs he didn’t even want because Arthur was on them, bought Arthur coffee in the mornings and drinks at night, teased him to annoy him and watch him bite down on those dimples, worked ever so slightly harder to impress him. Eames wouldn’t have said they were friends—understood why Arthur had been shocked by that label—and Eames, half-watching the progress of Arthur’s lawn-mowing neighbor, thought that “friends” was thoroughly inaccurate.

There was a very real possibility here that he was in love with Arthur. Had been in love with Arthur for _years_.

“Fucking Christ,” Eames muttered, and sucked in some unhealthy cancer-causing toxins because that seemed an appropriate response. 

Arthur stepped around the corner of the house, wearing a very conservative dark suit that Eames didn’t really care for but recognized was probably appropriate for the wake. He’d slicked his hair back and knotted his tie perfectly and he looked exactly like the Arthur Eames had always known. Except there was a wideness to his dark eyes that made Eames twitch with desire to fold Arthur up and tell him it would be okay, and part of Eames wanted to say, _Stop playing this part, take off your suit and fall to pieces for a bit._

Another part of Eames wanted to say, _Do you think I’m in love with you? Could that be a thing that’s happening? Does that sound melodramatic?_

He didn’t say anything at all. 

Arthur lifted his eyebrows and said, “Are you ready? Is something wrong?” 

Eames shook his head hastily and went to toss his cigarette away. 

Arthur caught his hand, startling him, and took the cigarette out of it. 

“Don’t,” Arthur said. “You’ll start a fire in the mulch.” Then he stuck the cigarette into his own mouth, taking a drag off of it as he moved away from Eames. 

Eames blinked in surprise and took a moment to give himself a stern internal talking-to: _Arthur needs you right now. Get a grip._

Then he followed Arthur to his car. 

Arthur seemed slightly better on the drive to the funeral home than he had been the previous day. His hands were certainly clenched slightly less tightly around the steering wheel. 

When they got to the funeral home, the funeral director greeted them in the carefully respectful way of funeral directors, and then pointed them to the room where Arthur’s mother had been laid out in the coffin. 

Eames had never really been a fan of the practice of open-casket wakes. Feeling awkward, he trailed behind Arthur, who sank to his knees on the bench beside the coffin and looked at his mother inside of it for a long moment. Eames didn’t know whether he should look or not. He finally settled on looking. A small, frail, old lady, who didn’t look much like Arthur. 

Arthur, after a moment, nodded and stood. “She looks good,” he said. 

Eames decided he’d have to take Arthur’s word on that one. 

“So,” Arthur continued, walking away from the wake to a small table where water had been set out. He poured himself a glass. Then he didn’t take it, just stood there looking at it. 

Eames felt awkward but he reminded himself that he wasn’t the one whose mother had just died and he needed to be there for Arthur, he needed to try to give him what he needed. 

“Hey,” he said softly, and stepped up to Arthur and put a hand at the small of Arthur’s back. Remarkably, he felt Arthur relax a bit, lean slightly into the touch, and Eames had never really spent much time touching Arthur before—Arthur had never seemed to invite it—but he resolved to do more of it that evening. “I’m right here. This whole time, yeah? Right here.” 

The look in Arthur’s eyes was grateful as he turned to Eames. “Her friends think nice things about me.” 

“I’m not going to contradict them.” 

“I just don’t want you to be surprised.” 

“Arthur. Why would I be surprised? Do you think I don’t think nice things about you?” 

Arthur half-shrugged. 

Eames wondered wildly what a mess he’d made of things, if the man he’d just realized he was in love with thought somehow that Eames didn’t even think nice things about him. He wanted to say, _There’s a lot we need to discuss, and now’s not the time, but when do you think you’ll be ready for a serious talk about us?_ Which was the most self-centered thing in the world, because he was a terrible person. 

Eames said, “Darling petal. I think very nice things about you.”

“About my ass,” said Arthur, with a wry, self-deprecating smile. 

“Among other things,” Eames replied earnestly. 

And then a trio of older women arrived, said Arthur’s name, and Arthur was engulfed in hugs and condolences, and he eventually introduced Eames, provoking more hugs and condolences, like Eames was also unquestionably part of the family. 

It was like that for the rest of the evening. Eames stood next to Arthur against the wall and people came and went, paying their respects. All of them spoke warmly to Arthur, about his mother “before,” about how proud she’d been of him, about what a wonderful son he was. They hugged him and consoled him and Arthur kept sending them fleeting smiles and then introducing them to Eames, and Eames would take over, do the socializing, be charming. It was a job he did well, and he was glad he was there to save Arthur from the endless small talk. 

The most surprising thing about the evening, Eames thought, was that nobody seemed especially surprised that he was standing there. Arthur just said to everyone, _This is Eames_ , with no other explanation, and everyone turned to him and hugged him tightly. Several told him how happy they were he was “with Arthur,” or that Arthur “had him” through these difficult times, and how Arthur was a “lovely boy,” a “sweet boy,” a “wonderful boy.” Arthur appeared to take no notice of all of these comments, appeared to always be absorbed in conversation with the next person in the line, but Eames knew Arthur well enough to know that Arthur missed zero tricks and certainly not any as obvious as these. But Eames just said over and over, “Yes, yes,” and stuck by Arthur’s side, and if Arthur seemed to drift closer to him over the course of the evening, well, it was probably entirely Eames’s imagination, right? 

Finally the last person drifted out. The funeral director drifted in and asked if Arthur wanted a few more moments alone with his mother before the funeral the next morning. Arthur, after a moment of hesitation, nodded, and glanced uncertainly at Eames. 

Eames said, “I’ll wait just outside, pet,” and then unexpectedly brushed a very light kiss over the side of Arthur’s head, haphazard but definitely there. 

Arthur didn’t react to this in any way. Eames doubted that he hadn’t noticed it, so either Arthur didn’t think it was remarkable that Eames had kissed his head or Arthur thought it so remarkable that he had decided to ignore it. 

Eames stood in the hallway of the funeral home, pretending to be normal for the funeral director while inwardly freaking out that now he’d apparently progressed to just kissing Arthur in random places. 

Arthur emerged into the hallway, looking exhausted, but he looked at Eames and managed a smile, which made Eames’s heart skip a beat, and, Christ, Eames had always thought hearts-skipping-beats was a _figure of speech_ , not a _real thing_. 

They drove back to the house without speaking, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. Arthur just seemed bone-tired, and Eames could understand that. Arthur trailed into the house and Eames followed. He didn’t expect Arthur to turn to him abruptly, which was why when Arthur did it he ended up flush against Eames. Eames made a startled, strangled noise in his throat. 

Arthur’s mouth opened and closed wordlessly for a second, and then he managed, “You’ve been… You’ve been…”

“Shh, darling,” Eames said softly. “You keep trying to thank me and you really don’t have to—”

“I thought I’d be alone. Doing this. I mean, I knew it was coming, and I thought I’d be alone, and you’ve been—”

“Darling,” Eames whispered, lifting his hands up to cup them around Arthur’s beloved face. 

Arthur fell silent and stared at him. 

Eames didn’t know what to make of that gaze, so he squeezed his eyes shut and leaned his forehead against Arthur’s. He said, “I’m sorry that I ever gave you the impression that you would have to do this alone. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you much, much earlier that you are, indeed, lovely, sweet, wonderful.” 

Arthur huffed out a laugh, and then said slowly, “To be fair, you did. But I didn’t think you…I didn’t think you were serious.” 

Eames breathed for a moment, aware they were standing together on the precipice of something enormous. He said, “What about now? Would you believe that I’m serious now?” 

Arthur took his own deep breath. He said, “Yes.” 

***

Eames sat next to Arthur throughout the funeral, their hands resting next to each other, not touching but close enough to suggest their presence to the other. 

And then, after, after, when all was done, Arthur turned the lock in the front door of his childhood home. 

Eames stood leaning against his car, watching him, waiting for him. 

Arthur walked over to him. Arthur kissed him. Slow, with purpose, with intent, with wordless words that Eames drank into his skin, lifting his hand up to the back of Arthur’s head. 

Arthur, with one last sip of Eames’s lower lip, pulled back. He looked at Eames, smiled, said, “Let’s go.” 

And they did.


End file.
